Case Study: How Stephanie Booked Her Honeymoon with Qantas Points

After reading Matt’s article on how to fly around the world with Qantas Points, I wanted to follow up with my own experience of booking a Oneworld Classic Flight Reward. Even after the recent point increases, it still offers excellent value if you know how to use it!

Before booking my honeymoon in 2024, I’d only dabbled in frequent flyer redemptions – mostly for domestic trips. But I wanted something special this time. And then, what I thought would be a once-in-a-lifetime trip quickly sparked a passion for frequent flyer points and international travel that I never expected.

When my husband and I listed the places we most wanted to visit, Japan and the United States topped the list. It wasn’t a round-the-world trip, rather just a few dream destinations. So that’s where I focused my efforts, and then the fun really began.

Step 1: Research and collecting points

I wanted to book this trip in Business Class, and realised that Qantas’ Oneworld Classic Flight Reward would be the best value option. Although this type of ticket is often used to fly around the world, that isn’t actually a requirement.

So I read (and re-read) articles published both here at Australian Frequent Flyer and at Points Hacks, and drew inspiration from other members’ shared experiences on the AFF forum.

I quickly realised that researching routes and award availability was just as important as earning the points.

I spent hours comparing Oneworld airline routings, monitoring reward seat release patterns, and tweaking dates until I finally pieced together a workable itinerary. And now I needed the points to book it.

Most of the points that my husband and I collected were from Qantas credit card sign-up bonuses. In total, we signed up for three credit cards each over an eight-month period. This gave us around 85% of the points we needed for the two Business Class tickets. We accrued the rest of the points in other ways, like conversions from Woolworths Rewards and even a well-timed sign-up for a Qantas Health Insurance policy.

Step 2: Booking the first flights using the Qantas website

With a rough plan in place, it was time to execute. After wrestling with dates and website error codes, I was able to book the start of this ticket using the Qantas website’s multi-city booking tool: Melbourne to Tokyo Narita, then Tokyo Haneda to New York on Japan Airlines.

I wasn’t thrilled about this airport change in Tokyo, and vowed to modify it later if possible. But for now I was happy to at least having something on the books!

I also managed to lock in a flight from Los Angeles to Osaka on Japan Airlines. Though that was all I could grab at the time due to partner airline reward release schedules. The rest would require patience, and then braving the Qantas call centre.

Step 3: The longest phone call(s) of my life

Qantas lets you make changes to Classic Flight Reward bookings for a change fee of 5,000 points per passenger, plus any fare difference. Technically, you can also add flights onto an existing booking for the same fee – but this can only be done by calling up.

I’d noticed that domestic US “First Class” reward seats often lingered for a while, which worked in my favour. I could wait to call Qantas and make several changes at once, knowing that those US domestic flights probably wouldn’t disappear in the interim. Still, I was nervous. At the time, reports of unhelpful staff or even bookings being cancelled made me hesitate.

The most important flight to lock in was Japan Airlines from Tokyo to Singapore. As soon as it became available, I took a deep breath and called to make the changes.

The first four calls were a disaster: long holds and agents insisting flights could only be booked on new itineraries, or hanging up entirely. Hang Up And Call Again (HUACA) became my mantra…

But I refused to give up.

Finally, on the fifth call, I reached an agent who admitted she had heard about these “intense” bookings and was nervous, but willing to give it a go. After a lot of back-and-forth, endless holds, and a growing sense of dread, flights started appearing in my Qantas app. After what felt like a lifetime, she confirmed everything was added. She was proud. I was proud.

Ticketing, she explained, would happen within 24 hours. I thanked her profusely and we hung up the phone after 1 hour, 27 minutes and 59 seconds together.

When no tickets arrived, my nerves returned. A couple of dead-end calls later, I emailed the Reward Ticket Escalations inbox. Another 24 hours later, relief: updated tickets in my inbox at last.

Persistence had paid off. I now had the following ticket:

Step 4: A birthday miracle

At last, I just needed to secure our flights home. I was very conscious that our return date coincided with Australian school holidays, which is prime time and notoriously tough for reward seats. I watched like a hawk as British Airways occasionally released two Business Class seats on its fifth-freedom route from Singapore to Sydney, only for these flights to be snapped up almost instantly.

Then, on the morning of my 28th birthday, I woke to find seats available on a date that worked perfectly. Without hesitation, but with a deep breath, I called Qantas yet again. Yes, this was the first thing I did on my birthday. Don’t judge me.

Then, a miracle. I was connected with the same helpful agent from a few days earlier. We laughed about our previous marathon booking session, and then she quickly added the flights to my itinerary.

Within half an hour, it was done. A 5,000-point change fee each, another follow-up email for ticketing, and we were officially flying home.

Truly a birthday blessing.

Step 5: Another modification, another phone call

As I mentioned in Step 1, the airport change in Tokyo didn’t thrill me. I’d set up alerts on seats.aero and kept checking the Qantas website every time I remembered.

Four months after I’d “finalised” our tickets, I almost fell out of my chair when Qantas suddenly released a huge batch of reward seats to the USA. Frantically, I called Qantas immediately. Never mind that I was in the office trying to work my day job (sorry boss!).

I endured another painful hour with multiple call dropouts before securing the seats for another 5,000 Qantas Points each to get it done. But get it done we did. Huzzah!

Also, I only received the seats.aero alert hours later. A good reminder that these alerts aren’t always instant.

Step 6: Profit

All in all, per person this itinerary cost us 318,000 Qantas Points for the tickets, plus some extra points for the change fees and $906.39 in cash.

If I would have booked this today, the cost would be 365,800 Qantas Points (plus the change fees and taxes).

We had our tickets in hand with all our flights locked in. Now we just had to get excited and wait for the big day! Oh, and plan our wedding of course. But at least the hard part was now out of the way.

Have you booked a Oneworld Classic Flight Reward with Qantas Points? Let us know in the forum where you visited!

On the Australian Frequent Flyer forum, you can also ask questions and get help from our community with booking one of these special reward tickets: